Handguns

The LWD-SLIDE20 will convert a G21 to fire 10mm, 40 S&W, 357 Sig, 9x25 Dillon, bare slide only. All internal parts, barrel, sights etc. must be purchased separately.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has awarded Winchester Ammunition the single largest ammunition contract in the history of federal law enforcement worth a maximum of $54 million.

Charter Arms has just released its new .22 LR and .22 Magnum Target Pathfinder Series 6-shot, all stainless-steel 4-inch-barrel revolvers with fully adjustable sights.

Ron Sieg, Flagstaff Regional Supervisor, will present issues associated with lead from spent ammunition.

Charter Arms has introduced its new 'The Pink Lady' revolver in .38 Special +P caliber.Evolved from Charter Arms' popular compact Undercover Series, The Pink Lady weighs 12 ounces thanks to an 7075 aircraft aluminum frame, and it's anodized bight pink.

Colt Melby has retired from the Smith & Wesson board of directors, effective January 8, 2008.

In this test our evaluation will include a new pistol that snuck up on everyone. On Tuesday, October 16, 2007, Ruger announced its SR9 9mm pistol, with an MSRP of $525. By Thursday, pistols began to arrive at retailers. By Friday, we had one to test.The keynote of this design was its grip similarity to the 1911, including ambidextrous thumb safeties and a choice of backstrap (flat, or palm swell design). Would sharing ergonomics and active safety features with the Browning design convince more traditional shooters to switch to a striker-fired double action pistol?Our second pistol was also a recent entry. The $939 Heckler & Koch P30 is a new vision of the P-series pistol that features the most adjustable ergonomics yet. Distribution has been limited but we found one at Fountain Firearms in Houston (fountainfirearms.com).Our third 9mm pistol was the $543 Springfield Armory XD9 Service Four-Inch. Lacking from a list of the XD9s features found on the company website (springfield-armory.com/xdfeatures.php) was an adjustable grip. Nevertheless, XD9 has been recognized as offering superior ergonomics, and like the SR9, the XD also shares some of the safety features found on the 1911.

Shooters like 9mm pistols for many reasons, chief among them being their reputation for manageable recoil with at least minimum acceptable stopping power for a self-defense cartridge. Also, 9mm guns can be made small and flat, which makes them suitable for comfortable concealed carry.

We recently bought a trio of such guns at Fountain Firearms in Houston (www.fountainfirearms.com, 281-561-8447). They were of relatively similar size, but different in almost every other way—and these differences made an impression on our testers that affected how we graded the pistols.

It is reasonable to expect that any pistol-evaluation piece covering "options in self defense" would focus on a range of semi-automatics that combine power with portability. For this test, we chose the $1059 Kimber Stainless Target .38 Super, Heckler & Kochs $879 P2000 V3 .40 S&W, and a Sigarms factory certified pre-owned P226, which came with both .40 S&W and .357 Sig barrels, $699.We thought the use of the word "options" was suitable because each of our guns was distinctly different in both construction and operation:The Kimber Stainless Target is a full-size 1911 built on a stainless-steel frame. The single-action trigger requires only a short press for ignition.The HK P2000 V3 is a polymer-framed weapon with both double- and single-action trigger pull. A unique feature was the placement of the decocker on the rear of the slide. Furthermore, the P2000 offered interchangeable backstraps in an attempt to customize the grip.The Sigarms P226 utilized a stainless-steel slide and an aluminum frame. The trigger system also featured both a double- and single-action pull, but the decocker was mounted on the frame. And, as mentioned above, the gun was shipped with two different barrels for firing both the .40 S&W and .357 Sig rounds.

In our ongoing search for the best .22 handgun for the trail, wherever that trail may take us, weve looked at a bunch of .22 handguns and have rejected quite a few. This time we mix the single-action stainless Bearcat from Ruger ($480) with a DA Model 94SS4 from Taurus ($406), and take a look back at one of our earlier test guns from March 2006, the eight-shot S&W AirLite Model 317 ($735) with "HIVIZ" sights. Below, we recap the earlier results from the AirLite first, add long-term results weve gleaned about it since our original test, and then mix in facts and opinions about the other two guns to produce grades for the Ruger and Taurus guns.

The ammo development program at Winchester had been a closely guarded secret. The goal: to make a suped-down version of the 10mm Auto.When the FBI began testing the 10mm, the agency found that a 180-grain bullet with velocities between 950 to 1,000 fps had great defensive potential. But the 10mm Auto, introduced in 1983, was too hot and dealt the shooter too much recoil for practical law enforcement use. What was needed, essentially, was a shortened 10mm cartridge that would fit in a smaller pistol platform-that is, S&Ws 9mm frames. Also, the cartridge needed to deliver a 180-grain payload at 950 to 1,000 fps with chamber pressures under [IMGCAP(1)]35,000 psi, the established ceiling for the 9mm.The result was the .40 S&W, which Smith & Wesson and Winchester teamed up to introduce in 1990. Though big-bore critics of the time derided it at the time as "Short & Weak" or "Short & Wimpy," the .40 came along as law enforcement was beginning to switch from revolvers to autoloaders.Still, its a curious choice for the average LE or concealed shooter, because the .40 S&W cartridge is a high-pressure round that delivers a sharp recoil pulse. It pushes a medium to heavy projectile at high velocity, and this in turn pushes the slide back sharply. While it is supposed to occupy the middle ground between the 9mm and the .45, it is a much more difficult cartridge to shoot well than either of those rounds.So we were curious how the .40 S&W would fare when packaged in concealable 4-inch-barrel guns.

When new revolvers are introduced, they don't get the fanfare afforded the latest semi-auto. That's why you might have missed out on the latest crop of big-bore wheelguns.

In this test we will try to make up for it by pitting two steel-framed forty-fours against an ultra-lightweight revolver of the same caliber — Taurus's 444MULTI, $666 — that could make carrying a bigger gun more inviting. The stainless-steel guns are the $916 Smith & Wesson Model 629 No. 163603 and Ruger's $780 Redhawk KRH-444.

[IMGCAP(1)]If there is any comparison to be drawn between these revolvers and the world of semi-automatic pistols, it is perhaps the appeal of the big bullet. The small-bore high-capacity frenzy seems to have abated, and now it seems that every manufacturer is making a 45-caliber pistol. With the release of more .44s, revolver makers may also be saying when capacity is limited, why not chamber a larger caliber? But when that thinking includes .44 Magnum/.44 Special ammo, two important questions remain: Will the Magnum ammunition prove too punishing?, and will the .44 Specials be accurate enough?

To answer these questions we tested from a distance of 25 yards with two loads of .44 Remington Magnum and two loads of .44 S&W Special. They were 240-grain Federal Fusion .44 Magnum No. F44FS1, 240-grain American Eagle .44 Magnum jacketed hollow points No. AE44A, 200-grain Winchester .44 Special Silvertip HP No. X44STHPS2, and Winchester's 246-grain lead roundnose ammunition No. X44SP.

Before testing each gun, we lubricated it with BreakFree CLP. Lubrication points on the revolvers were the barrel and chamber bores, the ratchet lugs, and the bushing in front of the cylinder. We also pulled back the hammer and placed a few drops of oil inside the frame. Whenever we transitioned from the Special to the Magnum loads, we scrubbed inside each chamber. This is because the shorter Special rounds can deposit debris at the hotspot where the tip of each case empties into the chambers. A buildup of debris can reduce the volume of the chamber and increase pressure. In extreme conditions, such as when it becomes necessary to push the longer magnum rounds into place, the extra pressure can be dangerous.

To collect accuracy data, all shots from the bench were fired single action only from a distance of 25 yards. Repeat fire was tested using the double-action trigger at shorter distances. We didn't expect to be able to shoot the magnum ammunition quickly, but we wondered about the .44 Special loads. Was there enough stopping power from each round to justify a shorter recovery time between each shot? Let's see how our six shooters measured up.